


Carry Me

by BrushDog



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: A little bit of angst, Gen, Mission Fic, injured Genji, mostly gruff dad Reyes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-02
Updated: 2017-12-02
Packaged: 2019-02-09 10:32:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12885993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BrushDog/pseuds/BrushDog
Summary: On a botched mission in his early Blackwatch days, Genji learns a lesson in trust.





	Carry Me

"Sparrow, do you copy?" The voice cracks with interference, ringing in Genji's ears.

The code name was his idea, a spiteful jab and a riddle rolled into one. He couldn't use his name, so it served well, but the sound of it in English, in Commander Reyes's clipped no-nonsense tone is anything but familiar. It's too round at the end, too high. The way his father said it, it rumbled off the tongue with a deep baritone, rich with fondness. Reyes's voice betrays no such emotion. He is cutting, efficient, sharp as the edge of Genji's blade.

Through the crack of static, Genji can hear the censure concealed by the words. He won't be let off lightly.

The mission was a success. A strike at a high ranking member of the Shimada clan, one who'd scoffed and voiced his discontent when Genji came home with bright green hair, with pretty girls and boys on his arms. Genji spilled the man's guts over the pristinely tended paths of his private garden before he had a chance to draw his sword. But Genji didn't expect the omnic the man had employed as a bodyguard.

It's still a victory, Genji thinks as he lays in the murky water of the koi pond. The omnic's sparking frame rests a few feet away. The acrid tang of blood hangs heavy on the air, a welcome distraction from Reyes's voice buzzing in his ear, from the koi fish nibbling uselessly at his exposed flesh and wire.

Reyes warned him not to get caught up in the moment, to understand the limitations of his body. Genji ignored him.

Now his body hangs in stillness and pain. Perhaps he could hold his tongue and let Reyes assume the worst. He won't be pleased when he sees what Genji has done to himself. His sword is clutched in his unresponsive right hand, the wire in his legs sparking and short-circuited. The dragon that curls over his prone form is his last remaining defense. Her tail twitches, waiting for his command.

But no. Reyes will know either way. His body is a weapon, one that belongs to Overwatch, to Blackwatch, to Reyes. Even if he does not respond, they will find him. The only choice lies in whether he will have the dignity of letting it be by his will.

Frowning beneath his faceplate, he closes his eyes.

"I am here."

"Copy that," Reyes says. "En route to your position."

"Very well." He can only wait.

Reyes arrives minutes later. His eyes sweep over Genji's broken body, his expression inscrutable. In that moment Genji finds himself back in Hanamura on the night when he first met Gabriel Reyes. Reyes was a mystery then, an imposing shadow against the night sky, barking orders with little hesitation and less patience. It's hard to say if Genji would have survived without Reyes there. But if Genji had died on that night, then he would never have lived to see his body twisted and mangled as it was now.

He turns away from Reyes, refusing to meet his scrutiny. At his side, his dragon's form shifts, scales rippling with a fluorescent green glow.

Reyes crouches beside him. He meets the dragon's discerning gaze, offering both hands up in surrender. That placates her.

Satisfied, Reyes turns his attention to Genji.

"We've only got thirty minutes before the drop ship has to pull out. Can you stand?"

That isn't enough time. The drop ship is twenty minutes away. That doesn't account for the state of Genji's body. Reyes is a powerful man, but even an enhanced body like his has limitations. There's no way he can carry Genji back.

"No," Genji says, his voice mechanically flat. "I think my legs are broken."

Reyes gives them another look, grimacing.

"Thought so," he says. He nods to the dragon, "Is that thing gonna get in my way if I pick you up?"

Genji blinks, the words striking like an unexpected blow to his chest. His breath hisses through the filter over his jaw, rattling with an unexpected show of emotion. He turns, looking to Reyes, trying to find some meaning hidden behind his eyes, a tell on his impassive face. Reyes is as solid and unreadable as ever.

"No," Genji says, too dumbfounded to say anything but the truth. "She will not strike you."

"Good," Reyes says before he reaches for Genji's broken body.

"Commander," Genji says haltingly, "The drop ship--"

"Leaves in thirty, I told you," Reyes grunts, shifting Genji's body in his arms. "And I'm not letting it go without you on it."

"I will weigh you down," Genji says. "You would be better off leaving me here." His voice tries for the imperious tone he'd heard from his brother one too many times, only to fall flat, sounding more like a petulant, angry child.

"Listen, Shimada. I don't know what all Dr. Ziegler's done to you, but I doubt there's any part of it that's made lying in a pond full of fish shit with your legs broken any more pleasant than it sounds."

Genji has no protest to that. The way that his dragon turns her head to favor Reyes in her gaze tells Genji that she is in agreement with the Commander on this matter. Genji bites his tongue.

Reyes watches him through the dim glow of the dragon's scale, reading the anger in the sharp line of Genji's brow, the frustration at his own stupid mistakes. He shakes his head with a sigh, pressing on.

"No one gets left behind. That's rule number one for anyone under me, anyone under Blackwatch. No matter what kind of dumb shit, stupid mess you make for yourself, Blackwatch has your back."

Genji snorts, the sound reverberating from behind his mask.

Reyes turns, quirking one eyebrow at him in question. "You got a problem with it, kid?"

"When you came to me with your offer, you told me your team was the best. But you are murderers, assassins, spies," Genji's voice curls over the words, tainting them with a disdain reserved for someone too familiar with the training needed to harden one's heart to such tasks. "Would it not be better to cut away the weakness in your ranks? Why waste the lives of many to save the life of one?"

There's a beat, punctuated only by the sound of Reyes's boots against the stone at the edge of the pond as he steps from the water.

"That how they do things back with the Shimada? Cut off your nose to spite your face?"

Genji glances down as Reyes sidesteps the fetid entrails of their target.

"The stake that sticks out gets hammered down," Genji replies. "I thought even Americans knew that one."

"I've heard it," Reyes says. His lips twist and he adds, " _ T _ _ suno o tamete ushi o korosu. _ You know that one, right?"

Genji startles, unable to conceal the surprise on his face. Kill a bull by straightening its horns. Reyes's accent is terrible, but Genji knows it. He hadn't thought that Reyes would.

Reyes continues, his eyes fixed on the path ahead, sweeping through the darkness to check for hostiles.

"I don't take a hammer to a well-oiled machine, Shimada. You don't get into this business, stay alive in this business, without having your own ways of 'sticking out.' You've got yours, I've got mine.  I don't need to know your reasons, don't need to know what's going on in your head. You keep your business to yourself, that's fine. But there's one thing I need to stick with you."

"What's that?" Genji asks. He knows what comes next. He yearns for it just as strongly as he bitterly thinks that despite everything Reyes has done, it's still an impossible dream. The two desires war with each other on the edge of his tongue. The exposed flesh of his arms and chest prickling with tension. He's surprised at how soft they sound in his voice, tempered by the intensity of Reyes's gaze fixed on him.

"When I say that Blackwatch has your back, trust me. "

Against the unyielding pressure of Reyes's words, something snaps inside of Genji. It's the abrupt release of a bowstring, the sudden lightness of an arrow loosed through the air, drawn to the ground by the inevitable pull of gravity.

It catches in Genji's throat, weightless, before falling back into the solid weight of Reyes's arms around him.

He knows the distance that divides Blackwatch from the life he once lived. The revelation sits uneasy with the fire burning in his belly, with the desire to see his family cut down in revenge, with what he has become, but he reaches out to take it nonetheless, to silently carry it with him.

"Very well," Genji says. "I trust you."

**Author's Note:**

> My piece for the [Blackwatch Zine!](). I had a lot of fun with this. This piece was written to accompany a piece by [orenjimaru](http://orenjimaru.tumblr.com/) which I'll link when they post.
> 
> Thanks to my betas [Allie](https://twitter.com/epistolari), [volokh](http://sparrowgenjivevo.tumblr.com/), and [AJ](http://archiveofourown.org/users/corinthian)
> 
> If you've liked the fic, please drop me a comment or tell your friends!
> 
> You can also drop me a message at [my tumblr](http://shibaface.tumblr.com/) too!


End file.
